Lloyd's of London
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Not to be confused with Lloyds Banking Group, Lloyd's Register, or Lloyd's List.
This article is about the insurance market. For the film, see Lloyd's of London (film).
"Lloyd's" redirects here. For other uses, see Lloyd.
Lloyd's of London Lloyd's of London
"The world's specialist insurance market"
Type
Insurance market
Founded London, England
1688; 327 years ago
Founder Edward Lloyd
Headquarters Lloyd's building, Lime Street
London, United Kingdom
Key people
John Nelson (Chairman)
Inga Beale (chief executive officer)
Website lloyds.com
The Lloyd's building in Lime Street is the current home of Lloyd's of London.
Lloyd's of London, generally known simply as Lloyd's, is an insurance market located in London's primary financial district, the City of London. Unlike most of its competitors in the industry, it is not a company but instead a corporate body governed by the Lloyd's Act of 1871 and subsequent Acts of Parliament. Lloyd's serves as a partially mutualised marketplace within which multiple financial backers come together to pool and spread risk. These underwriters or "members" are both corporations and individuals (the latter being traditionally known as Lloyd's "Names").
The insurance business underwritten at Lloyd's is predominantly general insurance and reinsurance, although in 2013 there were five syndicates writing term life assurance. The market has its roots in marine insurance and was founded by Edward Lloyd at his coffee house on Tower Street in the 17th century. Today, it is based at the Lloyd's building on Lime Street. Its motto is Fidentia, Latin for "confidence".[1]
In 2011, over £23.44 billion of gross premiums were transacted in the Lloyd's market and in the aggregate it made a pre-tax loss of £516 million, driven by a number of significant natural disasters which gave rise to its highest-ever annual level of claims.[2] In 2012, Lloyd's made a pre-tax profit of £2.77 billion on a record £25.50 billion of gross written premiums.[3]
Contents
1 History
1.1 Formation
1.2 First Lloyd's Act
1.3 Changes in the UK financial markets
1.4 Second Lloyd's Act
1.5 Traumas of the eighties and nineties
1.5.1 Asbestosis and unforeseen risk
1.6 'Recruit to dilute'
1.6.1 Reinsurance to close
1.6.2 Dilution of liabilities and the consequences
2 Structure
2.1 Council of Lloyd's
2.2 Businesses at Lloyd's
2.2.1 Members
2.2.2 Managing agents
2.2.3 Members' agents
2.2.4 Lloyd's coverholder
2.2.5 Lloyd's brokers
2.2.6 Integrated Lloyd's vehicles
2.3 Market structure
2.4 Financial security
3 Timeline of significant events at Lloyd's
4 Types of policies
5 Miscellaneous
6 See also
7 Footnotes
8 Further reading
9 External links
9.1 Data
History
Formation
The Subscription Room in the early 19th century.
The market began in Lloyd's Coffee House, opened by Edward Lloyd in around 1688 on Tower Street in the historic City of London. This establishment was a popular place for sailors, merchants, and ship owners, especially those involved in the slave trade, and Lloyd catered to them with reliable shipping news. Historian Eric Williams notes, "Lloyd's, like other insurance companies, insured slaves and slave ships, and was vitally interested in legal decisions as to what constituted 'natural death' and 'perils of the sea.'"[4] Lloyd's quickly obtained a monopoly on maritime insurance related to the slave trade and maintained it up through the early 19th century.[5] Just after Christmas 1691, the shop relocated to Lombard Street (a blue plaque commemorates this location). This arrangement carried on until 1774, long after Lloyd's death in 1713, when the participating members of the insurance arrangement formed a committee and moved to the Royal Exchange on Cornhill as The Society of Lloyd's.
First Lloyd's Act
The Royal Exchange was destroyed by fire in 1838 and, although the building was rebuilt by 1844, many of Lloyd's early records were lost. In 1871, the first Lloyd's Act was passed in Parliament which gave the business a sound legal footing. The Lloyd's Act of 1911[6] set out the Society's objectives, which include the promotion of its members' interests and the collection and dissemination of information.
It was realised that the membership of the Society, which had been largely made up of market participants, was too small in relation to the market's capitalisation and the risks that it was underwriting. Lloyd's response was to commission a secret internal inquiry, which produced the Cromer report in 1968. This report advocated the widening of membership to non-market participants, including non-British subjects and women, and to reduce the onerous capitalisation requirements (which created a more minor investor known as a "mini-Name"). The report also drew attention to the danger of conflicts of interest.
Changes in the UK financial markets
During the 1970s, a number of issues arose which were to have significant influence on the course of the Society. The first was the tax structure in the UK: capital gains were taxed at 40% (0% on gilts), earned income was taxed in the top bracket at 83%, and investment income in the top bracket at 98%. Lloyd's income counted as earned income, even for Names who did not work at Lloyd's, and this heavily influenced the direction of underwriting: in short, it was desirable for syndicates to make a (small) underwriting loss but a (larger) investment profit. The investment profit was typically achieved by 'bond washing' or 'gilt stripping': buying the gilt or other bond 'ex dividend' and selling it 'cum dividend', creating an income loss and a tax-free capital gain. Syndicate funds were also moved offshore (which later created problems through fraud and self-dealing).
Because Lloyd's acted as a tax shelter in addition to being an insurance market, the second issue affecting Lloyd's was an increase in its external membership, such that, by the end of the decade, the number of passive investors dwarfed the number of underwriters working in the markets. Thirdly, during the decade a number of scandals had come to light, including the collapse of the Sass syndicate, which had highlighted both the lack of regulation and the lack of legal powers of the Committee of Lloyd's (as it was then) to manage the Society.
Arising simultaneously with these developments were wider issues: firstly, in the United States, an ever-widening interpretation by the courts of insurance coverage in relation to workers' compensation for asbestos-related losses, which created a huge, and initially not recognised and then not acknowledged, hole in Lloyd's reserves. Secondly, by the end of the decade, almost all of the market agreements, such as the Joint Hull Agreement, which were effectively cartels mandating minimum terms, had been abandoned under pressure of competition. Thirdly, new specialised policies had arisen which had the effect of concentrating risk: these included "run-off policies", under which the liability of previous underwriting years would be transferred to the current year, and "time and distance" policies, whereby reserves would be used to buy a guarantee of future income.
Second Lloyd's Act
In 1980, Sir Henry Fisher was commissioned by the Council of Lloyd's to produce the foundation for a new Lloyd's Act. The recommendations of his report addressed the 'democratic deficit' and the lack of regulatory muscle.
The Lloyd's Act of 1982[7] further redefined the structure of the business, and was designed to give the 'external Names', introduced in response to the Cromer report, a say in the running of the business through a new governing Council. The main purpose of the 1982 Act was to separate the ownership of the managing agents of the Lloyd's underwriting syndicates from the ownership of the insurance broking firms (which acted as intermediaries, not as underwriters) with the objective of removing conflicts of interest.
Immediately after the passing of the 1982 Act, evidence came to light, and internal disciplinary proceedings were commenced against a number of individual underwriters who had siphoned sums from their businesses to their own accounts. These individuals included a deputy chairman of Lloyd's, Ian Posgate, and a chairman, Sir Peter Green.
In 1986 the British government commissioned Sir Patrick Neill to report on the standard of investor protection available at Lloyd's. His report was produced in 1987 and made a large number of recommendations but was never implemented in full.
Traumas of the eighties and nineties
In the late 1980s and early to mid 1990s, Lloyd's went through perhaps the most traumatic period in its history. Unexpectedly large legal awards in US courts for punitive damages led to large claims by insureds, especially on APH (asbestos, pollution and health hazard) policies, some dating as far back as the 1940s. Many of these policies were designed to cover all liabilities that were typically excluded on broad-form (wide cover) liability policies.
In the 1980s, Lloyd's was also accused of fraud by several American states and external Names (investors in underwriting syndicates).
Some of the more high-profile accusations included:
Lloyd's withheld their knowledge of asbestosis and pollution claims until they could recruit more investors to take on these liabilities that were unknown to investors prior to investing in Lloyd's;
enforcement officials in 11 US states charged Lloyd's and some of its associates with various wrongs such as fraud and selling unregistered securities;
Ian Posgate, one of Lloyd's leading underwriters and its deputy chairman, was charged with skimming money from investors and secretly trying to buy a Swiss bank; he was later acquitted.